Grammy winner, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, and Songwriters Hall of Famer John Fogerty is a towering figure in American music. As the leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival and as a solo artist, Fogerty forged an entirely distinctive sound—equal parts blues, country, pop, rockabilly, R&B, swamp boogie, and Southern fried rock & roll—alongside powerful, resonant lyrics, true workingman’s poetry.

His classic songs, including “Proud Mary,” “Fortunate Son,” “Born on the Bayou,” “Bad Moon Rising,” and “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” have sold over 100 million copies. His 1997 Blue Moon Swamp won the Grammy for Best Rock Album, and his solo work has been nominated for a total of 8 Grammys over the years. He’s even the only musician to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame for his song “Centerfield,” a staple at ballparks across the country. 

So Fogerty’s status as a legend has long been secure. What’s more remarkable, though, is how popular and influential his music remains after more than 50 years. 

Recently, Rolling Stone ran a story with the headline “The Biggest Band in America in 2024 is…Creedence Clearwater Revival.” John Fogerty and his monumental song collection of CCR hits on Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits have spent 737 weeks and counting—more than 14 consecutive years—on the Billboard 200 album chart.

Fogerty confirms that he has observed a resurgence of interest in his work. “It's always been there, sort of bubbling under,” he says, “but it does seem that in the past few years, younger people are more dialed into the music. It seems to be much more personal to kids that I see. There’s a light in their eyes when they're talking about it. Certainly, I see a lot more young people at shows now.”

In 2025, Fogerty will continue this momentum with a series of high-profile appearances, including a keynote speech at SXSW, receiving the prestigious American Music Honors for his influence on American music, and headlining slots at JazzFest and Glastonbury. Even with his long list of accomplishments, he still gets fired up for new experiences.

“I surprise myself that I'm feeling like a 16-year-old,” he says. “How I think about things like Glastonbury is, ‘Gee, I want to go there and kick ass!’ It's how I always thought about big opportunities like that—I felt that way about Woodstock. When I think about going out and touring or appearing at a certain event that I've maybe heard other people have played, I get excited. It's not old hat, because the music is not old hat.”

Most notably, in 2025 Fogerty will celebrate his 80^th birthday. “When I was 16, I would have envisioned an 80-year-old as some crotchety old guy, grumpy, ‘back in my day...,’” he says. “But the challenge of writing a great song is always there. I still love practicing guitar and getting better at it—there's things I couldn't do when I was a teenager, and now I can. It's fascinating to step back and go, ‘What makes that happen?’ I don't know, but it's my personality, the desire to want to be able to do something, and then the energy to put the work into it till you get there.”

He approaches this milestone coming off a steady output in recent years. During the 2020 quarantine, the Fogerty Family—featuring John with his sons Shane and Tyler and his daughter Kelsy—started a weekly video series from their home studio called “Fogerty’s Factory,” which became so popular that they documented it with an album. In early 2021, Fogerty released his first new original solo music in eight years, “Weeping in The Promised Land,” a moving tribute to those who had been affected by the pandemic, as well as those who have suffered through prejudice and injustice.

In 2023, Fogerty fulfilled a longtime personal mission when he acquired a majority interest of the worldwide publishing rights to his song catalog from Concord Records. For years, the copyrights to Fogerty’s classic songs were the property of Saul Zaentz, the owner of Fantasy Records. The conflicts Fogerty had with the label became the subject of multiple lawsuits; first, he won a case that Fantasy brought against him for copyright infringement and then, when he was held liable for his attorneys’ fees, he countersued, and in a groundbreaking 1994 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that it was unfair for successful defendants to face a higher burden than successful plaintiffs. Both verdicts represented hard-fought victories for the rights of artists everywhere.

Zanetz sold the label and its publishing portfolio to the former Concord Music Group in 1995. Fogerty, who had extricated himself from Fantasy in 1974, re-signed with the label upon its purchase by Concord but he was still not able to gain ownership of his songs until this deal was completed.

“They had the product of my work, my voice and my songs, so I was treated like a non-entity,” he says. “A lot of times, my music was used in ways I disagreed with, and I had no say in the matter. It was a heartbreaking feeling.

“The day that we got it signed was a big celebration, but you don't really know exactly what it means. For these past couple years, though, we've lived a different life. They can't just go do stuff and we don't like it. They have to ask us now. We've taken that on in such a profound way and boy, it sure feels great. For most of my life I did not own the songs I had written. Getting them back changes everything. I will celebrate this for the rest of my life.”

Soon after acquiring ownership of his catalog, Fogerty took to the road on the 2024 “Celebration Tour,” playing almost fifty dates including storied venues like Red Rocks and Bethel Woods (the site of Woodstock) and a residency in Las Vegas. Reviews described the show as a “high energy rock ‘n’ roll party” and noted that “Fogerty’s enthusiasm and happiness were infectious.”

It's been an amazing journey for John Fogerty—a working-class kid from the Bay Area suburbs who fell in love with rock & roll and dreamed of a mythic America. One of the few rock stars drafted in the Vietnam era, he put in his time with the Army, gathered his band, and fought his way up through the local bar scene.

“At the end of 1968,” he says, “I took stock of my position and looked at the  fact that we had one hit. We could forever be a one-hit wonder. We didn’t have a manager or an agent, we just had a teeny, tiny record label that was mostly a jazz label, and I realized I’d just have to do it with music.”

Between 1969 and 1971, CCR went on a historic hot streak, releasing fourteen consecutive Top 10 singles and five consecutive Top 10 albums, two of which—Green River and Cosmo’s Factory—went to Number One. Decades later, Fogerty remains a paragon of songwriting, a voice of protest, and a beacon of integrity.

“People ask if I ever get tired of playing ‘Proud Mary,’” he says. “And I don't. I love ‘Proud Mary.’ That was the first song that really showed how I'm different from some other person making music and still, when I sing it live, and people are smiling and all that, there'll be a certain line and I’ll think ‘Oh, yeah, that was cool—I remember when I wrote that!’ It's part of me, and it’s a really good feeling.”